Good work in the age of radical technologies

This report from the RSA warns against lurching to conclusions about what technological change means for workers.

The world is gripped by a frenzy about what technology means for workers. Barely a week goes by without another prediction of how many jobs are set to be lost to new machines. The consultancy PwC says seven million in the UK by 2040. The Bank of England claims it will be closer to 15 million, five years sooner.

These fears are understandable given the technological feats achieved of late. DeepMind - a leading light in the field of deep learning algorithms - recently found that its software can diagnose 50 types of eye disease with 94 percent accuracy. Elsewhere, the Press Association has begun deploying algorithms to generate 30,000 local news stories each month.

Should we be afraid? Or should we welcome the apparent dawn of a new machine age?